Mixtape
by IShipItLikeUPS
Summary: A collection of vignettes centering around the songs on a mixtape. These are not songfics. Set at an indeterminate time after Neverland but before Pan's curse and spanning until the end of current canon. Once I reach that point, I might continue it if there's enough interest/I feel inspired enough to write.
1. I Know I'm a Wolf--The Young Heretics

**A/N: 'Sup?**

**Like the summary says, these aren't songfics, although I did write each chapter with a different song in mind. I recommend reading each chapter while listening to the corresponding song for the most fulfilling reading experience. The song for this chapter is "I Know I'm a Wolf," by The Young Heretics. You can listen to it on YouTube. Just add /watch?v=8kTMB2UqQs4 after the YouTube URL.**

**This first chapter is hella short because it's more of an introductory type thing than anything else. It's just meant to get the mixtape into the story in the first place. Following chapters will be significantly longer.**

It's a Sunday.

It's a Sunday, and Emma wonders what the hell she thinks she's doing on a goddamn Sunday at fuck off o'clock in the morning standing on Regina's porch. Because they're not friends, not really, not even close. And she doesn't know how to explain to her why she made her a mixtape filled with music she's probably never heard before (and not just because Storybrooke was perpetually stuck in the eighties for 28 years) when they don't really even talk. _Hey, Regina. These songs remind me of you. When should I be by to pick up Henry?_

In the end, she decides to leave it on the doormat. _Not cowardice_, she tells herself. She almost believes it. Because Regina's been known to bite, but she's left that behind, hasn't she? She hasn't been anything but Regina in a long, long time. So it's not fear of Regina that has Emma hurrying across the street as fast as she can. It's fear of something else, and she tries very hard not to think too much on what that something else might be while she looks both ways as she crosses the street.

When Emma stops by later that week to pick up Henry and hears the strains of obscure musicians playing softly behind Regina's voice, she pretends not to smile.

**A/N: Although I've been writing fanfiction for several years now, this is my very first OUaT fic, so feel free to let me know if the characterizations I've got going on are wrong or if there was something you didn't like. I'll never improve without your help.**

**Also, obligatory comment about how the version of this story on AO3 is more complete because it contains the song lyrics I drew on. It's under the same username.**

**Thanks for reading!**


	2. Any Other World--MIKA

**A/N: The song for this chapter is "Any Other World," by MIKA. You can listen to it on YouTube. Just add /watch?v=As61-cmK4OI after the YouTube URL.**

Emma is looking at her like she can't quite believe what is happening, which Regina thinks is kind of idiotic, all things considered. For the child of two fairy tale characters, she can be awfully slow to accept things. But Regina remembers what it was like as a girl, lost and alone, desperate for her mother's love, staring disbelievingly up at Cora brushing off her hands of the dust of Daniel's heart like the residue didn't represent the end of everything Regina had ever wanted, and she thinks that maybe she and Emma are not so different after all.

"We have no choice. You have to go."

And Emma looks at her, just looks at her for a long moment, and at the same time that Regina is thinking that there _isn't time_, there's _no time_, she's also thinking that she almost wishes this moment could go on forever.

But then Emma speaks, shattering the illusion, and Regina is thrust back into the reality of the situation. "Okay."

And then she is saying goodbye to her parents, and Henry is looking at her with those same baleful eyes, blaming himself, and of all the things that have happened today, she thinks that this one is the one that she is least able to bear. "It wasn't your fault," she tells him. "It's mine. I cast a curse out of vengeance. And I'm… I'm a villain. And you heard Mr. Gold. Villains don't get happy endings."

"You're not a villain. You're my mom." And Regina swears that she can feel the exact moment that her heart breaks. Because Henry's mom is all she has ever wanted to be for the past 11 years, and she has done it without recognition, without ever wanting anything but to see Henry smile, and here he is, her little boy, her baby, wiping away the wrongs of the past 46 years of her life and leaving her as just Regina, and she doesn't know for sure, but she thinks that it feels a little bit like redemption.

And then Emma is walking away, and Regina is chasing after her because there's so much left to say, so much she still has to tell her. "Emma. There's something I haven't told you yet."

"What now?" And she knows, then, that Emma is already at her breaking point, already about to snap under the weight of this newfound burden, and Regina, just Regina, isn't cruel enough to add even more for her own selfish relief. So she swallows down the words she was going to say and instead tells her a half truth. "We just go back to being stories again."

"That doesn't sound like much of a happy ending."

And Regina laughs, short and strangled, because if she doesn't, she knows she will cry. "It's not. But I can give you one."

She takes Emma's hand and holds it, grounding herself to this conversation, this moment. "My gift to you is good memories… a good life for you… and Henry. You'll have never given him up. You'll have always been together." She feels her face crumpling with the force of the words she is not saying.

"You would do that?" The quiet question brings her back to reality. It is said in the voice of a girl who never had anyone do anything just for her, only ever had incidental kindnesses thrown her way like occasional scraps to a mutt under the kitchen table. It is said in the voice of a girl who only ever knew it was her birthday because the calendar said so and only ever knew it was Christmas because the truancy officer didn't come after her for not being in school. It is said in the voice of a girl that Regina recognizes, and she thinks that her heart just might break all over again.

"When I stop Pan's curse and you cross that town line, you will have the life you always wanted." It is a poor comfort, but it is all that Regina has to give.

"But it won't be real." And Emma is holding back tears, now, too.

"Well, your past won't. But your future will. Now go. There isn't much time left, and the curse will be here any minute." And the words sound like something else entirely.

Emma looks at her like she holds all the answers, and it makes Regina want to squirm underneath her gaze because she doesn't. She doesn't have the answers to anything. So she pulls Henry to her, kisses his forehead so she doesn't have to look at Emma looking at her.

And then Emma is gone, and so is Henry, and Regina is left alone like she has always been, like she will always be, watching her happiness drive away in a yellow Volkswagen Bug and wondering how she will ever bear to live a half-life now that she has had the taste of a full one.

**A/N: Although I've been writing fanfiction for several years now, this is my very first OUaT fic, so feel free to let me know if the characterizations I've got going on are wrong or if there was something you didn't like. I'll never improve without your help.**

******Also, obligatory comment about how the version of this story on AO3 is more complete because it contains the song lyrics I drew on. It's under the same username.**

**Thanks for reading!**


	3. Ghost Town--First Aid Kit

**A/N: The song for this chapter is "Ghost Town," by First Aid Kit. You can listen to it on YouTube. Just add /watch?v=2BKUjnyf8uY after the YouTube URL.**

"Here, Mom! Let's stop here!"

Emma looks out her window to see a rundown looking diner approaching on the side of the road. "Granny's Diner!" the sign proclaims in bright red lettering, and something in Emma's stomach does an odd little flip. Not unpleasant. Just… curious.

"Here? Are you sure?" The place looks old and worn, and she tries her best not to wrinkle her nose at the idea of eating there. But Henry is giving her an exasperated, pleading look, and she never was able to resist him. So she tells herself that the most well-worn places are also the most well-loved and pulls into a parking space.

The bell over the door jingles when they walk in, but there is no one else there to turn to look at them. For a moment, Emma expects…. She expects…. She doesn't know what she expects.

The waitress wiping down the counter glances at them before returning to her work, and they make their way over to a booth.

"Look, Mom, a jukebox!" Henry bounces on the vinyl seat. "Can I?" He is practically vibrating with excitement.

Emma rolls her eyes and fishes in her pocket for two quarters before handing them off to him. As he runs off to pick a song, the waitress makes her way over. "What can I get for you two today?" she says, snapping her bubblegum with a _pop_. Emma catches herself about to say, "The usual," but that doesn't make any sense because there is no usual. They've never been here before. Or have they? Emma doesn't remember. She can't….

"Ma'am?" the waitress asks, sounding incredibly bored with her job, and Emma jolts back from her thoughts.

"Oh, um. Two cheeseburgers with fries and two cups of hot cocoa."

The waitress scribbles something down on her order pad before turning on her heel. "Thank you for dining at Granny's. Your order will be out in a minute."

Henry comes hopping back from the jukebox and takes his seat across from her.

"What did you pick?" Emma asks him, and Henry shrugs.

"I didn't know any of the artists in there, so I just picked a random song."

The waitress comes back from the kitchen carrying a tray with two cheeseburgers, two fries, and two hot cocoas. She places it on the table, and by the time she is back to the counter, Henry is already halfway through his burger.

"Slow down, Henry!" Emma laughs, taking a sip of her hot cocoa, and her eyes glaze over. _No cinnamon,_ she thinks absentmindedly, but she shakes her head. She doesn't drink her hot cocoa with cinnamon.

For a little while, she can't hear anything over the sound of Henry inhaling his food, but then the faint, atmospheric sounds of music make their way over to her.

The song makes her overwhelmingly, indescribably sad.

"Mom?" Henry's query interrupts her thoughts, and she snaps back to attention.

"What? Oh, sorry. It's just..." Something niggles at the back of her mind, insistent on its importance.

"... Just what?"

And just like that, the moment is over, and the feeling is gone. "Nothing, kid. It's nothing."

She puts some bills on the table, ushers Henry out of the booth and back into the car. Only when they are buckled does she let herself ruminate on the song once more. But only for a moment, for there are bills to pay and places to be and jobs to do, and there is no space for songs that mean something but shouldn't.

They drive away, diner diminishing and shrinking in the background until nothing is left but a pinprick on the horizon, and soon, even that disappears.

**A/N: Although I've been writing fanfiction for several years now, this is my very first OUaT fic, so feel free to let me know if the characterizations I've got going on are wrong or if there was something you didn't like. I'll never improve without your help.**

******Also, obligatory comment about how the version of this story on AO3 is more complete because it contains the song lyrics I drew on. It's under the same username.**

**Thanks for reading!**


	4. Falling Slowly--Glen Hansard and Markéta

**A/N: The song for this chapter is "Falling Slowly," by Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová. I couldn't fit the whole chapter title in, but that's it. You can listen to it on YouTube. Just add /watch?v=k8mtXwtapX4 after the YouTube URL.**

"Is this really what you do for a living?"

"Yeah, it's called a stakeout."

"And you don't get… bored?"

"I don't know. I mean, you find ways to pass time. Eat. Talk. Listen to music." At that, Emma leans over and turns on the radio. A song filters out of the speakers, tinny and distorted through the aged stereo, but Regina thinks she recognizes it, anyway. Before she can place it, Emma interrupts her. "Mostly watch, which is what we should be doing."

So they sit and watch in silence for a moment, song swirling around them and filling the small confines of the Bug. But eventually, it becomes too much to take, and Regina finally asks the question that has been buzzing in her mind since a shattered mug in a diner. She doesn't say it like a question, though. Because she can't afford for the answer to be in the negative, not after what she did, not after what she gave up. "So he's happy. His life is good there."

And Emma, honest, truthful Emma, must sense the importance of the statement because she turns to her and gives her an answer of equal magnitude. "Yeah. I almost didn't come back because of that."

A beat. And then, "But why did you?"

_Tell her tell her TELL HER_, Emma's mind shouts.

But she doesn't.

_Because you were the second thing I saw after I remembered_.

"Because he may not remember all this, but I do. And I know what he would say: 'A hero would come back.'"

Emma doesn't feel like much of a hero when she says it. Not with the way Regina is looking at her, all silent expectance and honest eyes, like maybe she's starting to believe in hope again.

So Emma looks away, stares straight ahead through the windshield at Regina's office and pretends that her newfound focus has nothing to do with the way that her stomach is in knots from Regina's eyes on her. _You're going to take him back_, Emma's traitorous mind whispers. _You're going to take him back to New York, and then where will that leave Regina?_ Her fingers tighten on the steering wheel. Because as much as she hasn't allowed herself to think about it, not when the town needs her, not when _Regina_ needs her, the smoky tendrils of a half formed escape plan decided upon long ago wisp through her mind, just beyond her reach somewhere on the edges of her consciousness. And if Emma is being honest with herself, as she rarely allows herself to be when it comes to Henry's other mother, she knows _exactly_ where that will leave Regina.

"You sure you don't want to meet him?" Emma bursts out when the anxiety of what she is eventually going to do becomes too much to bear. "We can just tell him that you're an old friend, like Mary Margaret and David." It is peace offering and distraction all at once, a poor attempt at making up for the hurt she has already decided, somewhere in the depths of her mind, that she will leave Regina come an end to this newfound threat.

But Regina is already shaking her head, and when she speaks, it sounds like she is swallowing back tears. "It would be too hard," she says with the utter finality of a woman who has resigned herself to a life of loneliness one time too many.

Emma turns away again so that she doesn't have to see even the poor facsimile of the pain that she is sure to cause Regina by the time this is all over. Because it isn't fair, that life can keep beating some people down when all they have ever wanted is to be happy. "I can't imagine—" she begins. But she can. She can. So when she sees the shadow in the window of Regina's office, she thanks her lucky stars for the distraction from finishing her thought and jumps on it with the desperation of a drowning person. "We got them!"

And then they are getting out of the car, and there is not much time to think of anything, least of all what a mother becomes if she has no child there to parent.

**A/N: Although I've been writing fanfiction for several years now, this is my very first OUaT fic, so feel free to let me know if the characterizations I've got going on are wrong or if there was something you didn't like. I'll never improve without your help.**

**Also, obligatory comment about how the version of this story on AO3 is more complete because it contains the song lyrics I drew on. It's under the same username.**

**Thanks for reading!**


	5. Coming Down--Dum Dum Girls

**A/N: The song for this chapter is "Coming Down," by the Dum Dum Girls. You can listen to it on YouTube. Just add /watch?v=sZdbNMDH8hc after the YouTube URL.**

**Also, now that I'm caught up with canon, should I continue this story, don't expect updates so often. I just had a lot of the later chapters prewritten.**

"Regina, I would like you to meet—" But Emma never gets to finish, and after that, everything seems to blur together until it is one long, never-ending slideshow of moments Regina would rather not witness.

"Marian? Marian!"

"Robin?" (And oh, looking back, she knows that this is the moment that things fall irrevocably apart.)

"I thought you were dead. I thought I'd never see you again!"

"And I you!"

And then Roland, sweet, beautiful Roland, is looking up at this victim of Regina's past with wide eyes. "… Mama?" he says, all childish hesitance and uncertainty, and it shouldn't hurt, not now that Henry remembers her, but it does (She thinks it might always smart, this idea of children not knowing their own mothers, even if that mother isn't she.). And she wishes she could begrudge this woman her reunion, but she can't bring herself to do so, not when she knows how it feels to hold her own son in her arms.

Regina can't hear anything over the sound of the blood rushing in her ears, her own pulse pounding out a steady drumbeat that vibrates inside her head against the confines of her skull. The dichotomy of this moment to 30 seconds ago makes her want to scream, and she thinks that she might if that didn't mean that Emma would see her weakness. Because she was happy. For the first time in what seemed like forever, she was happy. Not as happy as she could be. But happier than she had been.

And she wasn't in love with Robin. She knows that. She isn't stupid. But she could have been. One day, she could have been. And that's more than she can say about any moment or person in her life since Daniel.

"You..." she says, and at first, she doesn't even recognize her own voice. "You." More certainly, but only for a moment. "You did this?" Broken. Her voice cracks when she asks it, and she would curse herself if she hadn't moved on from that form of revenge a long time ago.

More than anything, the question comes across as disbelieving. Because Emma was the last person Regina expected to hurt her, and she tries not to think too hard about what that might mean.

Emma looks as stricken as Regina feels, and there is a sharp clench in her gut as Regina realizes that Emma genuinely didn't know. _She didn't know_.

Emma struggles to explain herself: "I just wanted to save her life." Like that makes it okay. Like that erases what this means for Regina (And gods help her, she thinks it just might, and that thought is like yet another twist to the knife. She really _must_ be changing.).

But Regina shakes her head, hurt making her vindictive, because as a matter of pride, she can't forgive this kind of a transgression against her, not yet, maybe not ever, no matter how much she wants to. "You're just like your mother," she hisses, knowing that this, more than anything else, will hit the mark (And how is it that they know each other so well?) when the woman in question has spent her whole life striving to become her own person and be nothing like the parents who abandoned her, and the thought comes to her, sudden and unbidden, a result of the look on Emma' face: _You abuse the ones who love you._ A line from a song from a mixtape from a girl. Regina remembers being a girl once. She wonders how similar they are, one a bastion of strength, willing martyr, hurt glowing in her eyes, and the other, just as lost, just as afraid of being unwanted, dark and alone in the depths of her soul.

"I didn't know," Emma says, and it comes out quietly. She doesn't say it like an excuse, and seeing the way the fight has been taken out of her longtime nemesis/part-time... (_Acquaintance? Ally? Friend?_ The words flash through Regina's mind before she can stop them.) something, someone who has always been willing to retaliate, might shock Regina the most.

"Of course you didn't!" Regina snaps, and she doesn't know if she means it as affirmation or as damnation.

A moment of silence as they both ruminate on this newfound development, and then Regina protects herself the way she knows best, perhaps the only way she knows how: "Well, you just better hope to hell that you didn't bring anything else back." An implied insult at Emma's competence before she turns away and walks out of the diner. Regina hopes that it is enough to shield from view how much she is shaking.

He was her second chance. Robin was her second chance.

_Was he really?_ a voice whispers, but she shakes her head to clear it of such thoughts. Yes, he was her second chance, and now, once again, she is left with nothing more than a bruised heart that struggles to even beat through the pain.

**A/N: Although I've been writing fanfiction for several years now, this is my very first OUaT fic, so feel free to let me know if the characterizations I've got going on are wrong or if there was something you didn't like. I'll never improve without your help.**

**Also, obligatory comment about how the version of this story on AO3 is more complete because it contains the song lyrics I drew on. It's under the same username.**

**Thanks for reading!**


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